Senator Mike Crapo’s Crappy Economics

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Mike Crapo is about as useless as tits on a boar when it comes to the fundamental GOP mission to function as the watchdog of the Treasury.

And in that regard he is far from unique. Actually, he perfectly represents Washington’s herd of modern day GOP fiscal fakes, who are absolute cowards and mindless dullards when it comes to staunching Washington’s out-of-control spending and debt. Instead, they hide behind a phony “growth” mantra that they do not remotely understand, and which is not relevant to the nation’s current fiscal crisis, anyway.

But Senator Crappo may have outdone all of them with his latest dodgy gambit. To wit, he wants to extend the 2017 Trump tax cuts at a cost of $5 trillion over the next decade, but not count the resulting tsunami of red ink! .

That’s right. The man has explicitly said that since tax cuts purportedly add to “growth”, let her rip. And if interest rates “go up a bit”, what’s to sweat?!

“It looks like interest rates may be going back up a bit,” said Senate Finance Committee Chairman Mike Crapo (R., Idaho). “I don’t know that it changes anything because we’re focused on economic growth, and whether the bond market is stumbling or whether it’s not, the same principles apply.”

Well, of course tax cuts generate some positive economic feedback, especially if they impact investment incentives and high marginal tax rates. But for crying out loud, they do not pay for themselves. Not remotely.

That’s because the Federal tax take is just 18% of GDP. So to breakeven you need a 5:1 re-flow of GDP for every dollar of revenue loss, and that just doesn’t happen. Never has. Never will.